


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No. 

Shelt_-K&jM (o 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



KOOPMAN 
POETICAL WORKS 

III 
MORROW-SONGS 



CHARGE 

Go, Morrow-Songs,/^ so 1 bid you greet 
With blithe good-morrow all ye hap to meet; 
And, Morrow, while to glad my steps ye ran 
On childhood's dewy sward, ere they began 
To slip and stumble up life's craggy slope ; 
Morrow, because your greeting rings with hope, 
Stronger for disillusion ; and, again, 
As Morrow-Songs I send you forth to men, 
Because of earth's great morrow-tide ye sing, 
And all the wonder that its dawn shall bring ; 
And, Morrow, lastly, since to far-off days, 
If, haply, any, must ye look for praise. 



MORROW-SONGS 

1880-1898 



BY / 

HARRY LYMAN KOOPMAN 



BOSTON, MASS. 
H. D. EVERETT, PUBLISHER 

1898 







TWO COPIES RECEIVED- 






Copyright i8p8 
By H. L. Koopman 



6163 



DEDICATION 

Inly beloved, ere my songs take flight, 
Grant them, I pray, acceptance in thy sight, 
Who art my morrow-tide with hope elate, 
And courage to confront the coming fate ; 
Tet art my midday strength and equal mind, 
Who daily faith renewest in humankind ; 
And art no less the solace and repose 
That come with darkness at my labor's close. 
Morning and noon and even, O my wife, 
Unite in thee my perfect day of life. 



CONTENTS 






PAGE 


Charge 


ii 


Dedication 


V 


Freedom 


3 


The Gothic Minster 


5 


The Conqueror 


19 


John Brown 


21 


The Sowers 


21 


Progress 


23 


Reform 


23 


The Thinker 


24 


Heaven 


25 


Life 


26 


Recognition 


26 


Indignation 


27 


Temptation 


27 


Home 


27 


The Outlook 


34 


Appreciation 


37 


The Pioneer 


38 


The Higher Harmony 


38 


Numbers 


39 


The Heavenly Vision 


39 


My Washerwoman 


40 


The Church Progressive 


4 1 


Failure 


4 1 


After-Life 


41 


Priestcraft 


42 


Inheritance 


42 



Vll 



CONTENTS 






PAGE 


What Shall It Profit? 


42 


Riches 


43 


Prudence 


44 


Extremes 


44 


The Wail of the Wounded 


45 


Opportunity 


46 


Truth 


46 


M'Cready 


46 


Stumbling-Blocks 


47 


Two Characterizations 


48 


Individualism 


49 


New Birth 


49 


Masks 


49 


Wit and Madness 


50 


Oppression 


5o 


The Beginning of Civilization 


50 


The Jew 


5i 


The King of Darkness 


5i 


Music-Life 


5* 


Recreant 


52 


The Rule of Mammon 


53 


Birth 


54 


Hate 


54 


Truth, Peace, Love 


55 


John Henry Mackay 


57 


Aloneness 


57 


Comrade 


58 


The Satirist 


58 


Midway 


59 


Originality 


63 


Revealed 


63 



CONTENTS 






PAGE 


Kearsarge 
Babyhood 
Medio Tutissimus Ibis 


6 4 
65 

66 


The Triumph of Toil 


67 


The Player 

Song-Lull 

The Time-Server 


67 
67 
68 


Genius 


68 


Fertility 

Guided 

The Way Station 

Culture 


69 
69 
7o 
7* 


Before Dawn 


7i 


Dust 


72 


Two Poets 


73 



FREEDOM 

VANISHED the tender gleams 
That my past illumed ; 
In a blaze of noon-bright beams 
Is their dawn consumed. 

A vision blasting with light 

Thy features give. — 
Have I looked with naked sight 

On Thee, and live ? 

Or who will credit my tale, 

If I speak Thee true ? 
But, chosen of Thee, can I fail ? 

I will dare and do. 



NOTE. 

In the following poem the description of the cathedral adopts, 
for the outside y somenvhat the lines of the minster at Ulm ivith 
its single spire, among the spires of earth peerless in height and 
beauty ; nvhile the colors of the interior ha<ve been drawn from 
the more gorgeous cathedrals of the Ile-de-France, the cradle 
and the throne of Gothic architecture . 



THE GOTHIC MINSTER 

A SYMPHONY in stone ; wherein all notes 
Wrung or upleaping from man's ruddy heart, 
The low, the loud, the dull, the penetrating, 
As up to heaven thronging they ascend, 
In labyrinthean intertanglement, 
O'ertaken in mid-harmony by form, 
Stand bodied forth, eternized, visible. 
No thin Memnonian murmur, faintly heard 
At dawn or dusk with glad or plaintive strain, 
Here swells a chorus never still, a vast 
Millennial antiphon absolved from sound, 
Which thrills and thunders on the eye alone ; 
The music of the world-wide life of man, 
Its hopes and fears and sins and sacrifices, 
Rapt adoration, faith by deeds confirmed, 
Jaw-dropt credulity, keen questioning, 
Death-scorning courage daunted by the dark, 
Love barred with hate, with grossness purity, 
Red-slipping war, the hammering hum of peace, 
Hand-clasping brotherhood and manliness, 
The joy of handiwork, whose rest is toil, 
The joy of breathing, moving, loving life, 
Immortalized and eloquent in stone. 



MORROW-SONGS 

Stand here at night in storm, when, through the 

gloom, 
The great bulk seems a wall across the world, 
Uprising jagged to the very sky, 
And you could deem a horned Alp, rebellious 
Against the encircling conclave of his peers, 
Had by their doom been banished here to dwell, 
With all his fretting pines and pinnacles. 
But let the moon break forth, and through swift scud 
Flicker and float upon these carven walls, 
The mountain vanishes, and in its place 
A structure gleams without a stain of earth, 
A temple heaven-descended, or, as if 
A convoy of blest angels chorusing, 
As back to heaven they bore a saint's white soul, 
Had ravished so the moonlight with their song, 
That, where their notes fell, there the beams, trans- 
formed, 
Had stood upstriving, and, as rose the hymn, 
So rose the silver fane, until the sound 
Was muffled by the stars ; while far below, 
Though far aloft to men, the snowy cross 
Hung yearning for that vanished melody. 
But stand before the minster when high noon 
Throws its revealing light on tower and wall, 
The airy structure hardens into stone ; 
Not all forgetful of the mountain form 
It wore in darkness, nor the winged grace 






THE GOTHIC MINSTER 

And lightness of that moony masonry ; 

Yet plainly work of man, man at his best, 

Highest aspiring and most self-forgetful, 

Therefore most self-revealing. Then, what self? 

The genius of what master intellect 

Shines here by baser hands wrought visibly ? 

No mighty genius, and no baser hands, 

But common lives by faith and art exalted ; — 

Such workmen reared these walls, and carved these 

spires, 
And shot yon shaft of beauty into air 
Till the eye aches that follows, and the heart 
Feels itself snatched from earth and swept on high, 
As by the current of a soaring flame. 

If then the greatness was not theirs that wrought, 
What mastering motive so informed their lives 
As through such lowly means to win expression ? 
Religion 't was, and art its ministrant, 
The records answer; but the question comes, 
If unto them the word " religion " spake 
As in our ears to-day. In every age 
Bears not the word its new significance, 
Or meanings manifold, though under all 
Abide the root and spring of all religion, 
The loneliness and longing of the soul 
Orphaned of its ideal ? The eye within 
Beholds an image of perfection, 



MORROW-SONGS 

But in the outer and embodied world 
Sees only crudeness, failure, death, decay ; 
No circle round, no angle true, no life 
But inly bears the seeds of its own death ; 
The redeless riddle of the universe : 
The rain descending on the evil man 
As on the good, and on the good as oft 
The hail and lightning j nothing justified 
Within the span of life ; the heart awarding 
Men's lot by merit, and aggrieved to find 
That force on earth usurps the place of right ; 
Nor satisfied that with the ages' lapse 
Wrong slowly is made right, if this man's hurt 
Is never healed, nor that man's pride put down. 
The heart has vision in its inmost shrine 
Of love illimitable, its native air, 
Its birthplace and its bourne ; but sees on earth 
Man's hand against his brother, hate and greed 
Making the world a shambles, or a den 
Of famine and of torture ; yea ! the lesson, 
Learned after centuries, that 't is thriftier 
To coin a brother's heart's-blood, drop by drop, 
Than spill it wastefully by the swift sword. 

But heart and mind refuse to answer no 
To the enigma of the universe. 
Though earth and air and sea and human life, 
With all their voices, howl a negative, 
8 



THE GOTHIC MINSTER 

Deep in the soul resounds eternal yea. 
Therefore the soul back on itself returns, 
And through itself, as though a glass, beholds 
The infinite brought down to human ken, 
The dateless, boundless, beauty, goodness, truth. 
But not in all its hours can the soul scale 
Those dizzy heights of contemplation, 
Descend those depths and breathe with mortal 

breath ; 
Nor have all souls that strength to climb and dive. 
So, that the blind might share the seer's sight, 
And that the seer in his hours of gloom 
Might not forget the vision wonderful, 
Men wrought them symbols that should reproduce 
The shadowed glory, as the picture's lines 
Recall the absent loved one. Yea, they strove 
By strong suggestions so to realize 
The world unseen, that o'er the symbol seen 
The unseen through the parted heaven should burst. 
Many the symbols that in many lands 
Throughout the ages have moved human hearts 
With heavenly persuasion ; but with some 
An age, a race, drank all the meaning dry, 
And left a rocky channel to our thirst. 
Yet other symbols spake to all men's hearts 
And speak to after ages. Such are those 
Vast emblems of the life of man in God 
And of God's life with men, that, long perfecting, 

9 



MORROW-SONGS 

After the opening of the new millennium 
For half a thousand years ceased not to break 
Flower-like on Europe's air, as if the rocks 
Had risen in worship, and the forest aisles 
Had joined them in uplifted adoration. 

For him who from our naked shore brings eyes 
Of unblest innocence, which never saw 
Beauty in stone nor vaulted awfulness, 
Yet brings a heart that thrills to grace and gloom 
What ravishment awaits ! On him unwarned, 
In all their beauty and their fragrance, burst 
These fadeless blossoms of the centuries. 
Upon his ears not dulled by frequency 
The mighty chords of these vast instruments 
Shatter full diapason. O'er his soul 
The symbol once again breaks up the depths 
Of the unfathomed blue to melt beneath 
The glory of the infinite descending. 
Man's life in God, so mounts the soaring pile ; 
Foundations vast and broad laid far below 
In sunless depths of unseen sacrifice; 
The walls arising, buttressed all about 
With rallying support ; oft scarcely more 
Than buttresses, so precious is the room 
For inward light ; then shrinking in the roof, 
Then, as if taking heart, once more the walls 
Rise heavenward, many-windowed, through a maze 
10 



THE GOTHIC MINSTER 

Of buttresses that spring to meet the lower, 

Then leap in upward flame for very joy 

Of help received and given ; while, through all 

The length and breadth of the vast edifice, 

No line but upward strives, no stone but lifts, 

No smallest spire or finial but stands 

On tiptoe to ascend. But not so broad 

Can mount the highest life. The roof shuts in ; 

And all the upward impulse of the pile 

Narrows into the tower, which climbs and climbs, 

But though so far from earth not yet finds heaven ; 

Too earthly still, it throws more weight away ; 

A flying cloud is scarce so airy now ; 

But still the vision waits, and still the spire, 

Now narrowed to a staff, holds on its aim, 

Will not give o'er until the blessing fall ; 

And see, the stone begins to bud with hope; 

Swifter the spire shoots up, then suddenly 

Stops, and in the rose-cross blossoms forth 

For rapture of the beatific vision. 

So finds the life of man its rest in God, 
After long toil, repose ; long warfare, peace. 
Where finds it ? Yonder, never here on earth, 
The upward-pointing answers. Finds what life ? 
The heart still urges, and for answer given 
Receives the beckoning of the sculptured portal. 
With heart upturned and chastened soul go in ; 

II 



MORROW-SONGS 

The world shuts down behind, and thou art left 

Alone in presence of the ineffable. 

The very light is not the light of day ; 

For here the sun shines not, but living light 

With its effulgence glorifies the air, 

As if the rainbow's promise filled the world. 

All vistas end in light ; past range on range 

Of columns down the illimitable aisle 

A glory shuts the vision j while, above, 

From gloom to splendor soar the vaulted heights. 

To right, to left, the air is dyed with hues, 

Rich, darkling, solemnly magnificent, 

Like the deep organ tones that from aloft 

Roll under the huge vaults, and die away 

Along the lessening arches dim and far. 

Hours here are ages ; time has oped his hand 

And let the soul fly free ; the bounds of space 

Hem its light wings no longer. Where and when 

Have lost their meaning to the mind entranced. 

Yea, self itself is lost ; the weary soul, 

After long flight, within the bosom rests 

Of the eternal, as the spray-flung drop 

Sinks back in ocean's immensity. 

What shall bring back the soul to earthly life, 
After such heavenly ravishment, lest it faint, 
Being clothed upon with flesh, in that fine air ? 
Beauty : which links the human and divine, 
12 






THE GOTHIC MINSTER 

And lures the soul on heavenly meads astray 

Down its bright pathways to humanity. 

At last the eye begins with separate sight 

To mark what wholly had but dazzled it. 

The mind, by suddenness of the splendor stunned, 

Now step by step and slowly traverses 

The strange new world revealed ; and finds it all 

Not wholly new or strange. The forms are here 

That build the forest's awe, the cavern's dread, 

And, more familiar still, the lowlier shapes 

Of leaf and bud and flower, with vines that cling 

And coii and twine and creep and nestle or climb ; 

All wrought with faithfulness that comes alone 

To love, a love that cherishes the life, 

Not merely the dead forms. Then the mind's eye 

Pictures the workman of that elder time 

On Sunday with his children wandering 

In wood and field, and noting curve and poise 

Of flower and leaf and stem, while constantly 

His children bring him brighter, sweeter blooms 

For his approval. Wearying at last, 

They lighten with their songs the homeward way. 

No man might hope to see the pile complete, 

But yet his daily, weekly, yearly task 

He wrought and finished, and in doing it 

Found happiness. Toil might his body tire, 

But in his heart was never any wish 

Save to renew his task with the new day ; 

*3 



MORROW-SONGS 

So much he loved the work. His toil to him 
Was recreation, for it ministered 
To mind and heart ; in it his thought and will 
Wrought their creative impulse, and he knew 
The artist's joy, finding in art his life. 

Men build no more cathedrals ; — walls may rise, 

With tower and window, and be consecrate 

To the old purpose, but the soul is fled. 

Small need the cause to question. Who toils now 

For love of art, with high creative joy ? 

No laborer. Then in vain the master plans, 

Or, rather, vain his plan, and void of soul. 

Art knows no sundering of the hand and brain ; 

The two as one must labor, for in art 

The greater sinks or rises with the less. 

But, given the art, should we be able still 

To lift such clouds of incense to the sky, 

By marble less than faith made permanent ? 

The question holds its answer ; for the faith 

That bade these mountains be removed and wrought 

Into new shapes of heavenlier loveliness 

Is dead on earth, never to live again. 

That faith is dead ; light slew it ; when men came 

To know the world they live in, and themselves, 

The faith that pointed them away from earth, 

And bade them scorn and flee it, could not live. 

With all the beauty and the nameless charm 



THE GOTHIC MINSTER 

And soothing of the soul and inspiration 
And lessons, which their monuments retain, 
The old beliefs of twilight, when day dawned, 
Must needs grow thin and vanish like the night. 
That faith is dead which made the earth a waste, 
And man's life but a desert pilgrimage 
O'er burning sands and flinty shards to find 
Beyond its bounds a Paradise and rest. 
That faith is dead which in the body saw 
Only the spirit's prison, a house of sin, 
To be escaped from, not indwelt with joy. 
That faith is dead, with its black pessimism, 
Which deemed this world the devil's world, and then, 
That men might not die wholly in despair, 
Fashioned a heaven for earth's apology. 
That faith is dead, but its dark influence 
Yet shadows us. Now men discern at last 
That whatsoever other lives and worlds 
Within the unrevealed may wait for man, 
Yet is this earth his home, the theatre, 
Where, and not elsewhere, he must play his part ; — 
So much is sure ; the rest is dread or hope ; — 
How do men greet this knowledge ? How for this 
Has the old faith prepared them ? Alas ! the heart, 
In the long years wherein the mind has grown 
To stature and strength of manhood, has been fed 
On childish food, and in its weakliness 
Staggers beneath the burden. Some men therefore 

15 



MORROW-SONGS 

Rush out of life, preferring any change, 
Or nothingness itself, to life on earth. 
Others, like wolves, against their fellows turn 
And rend the weak and wounded, feasting on them. 
Others, retreating to the charnel house 
Of the dead faith, pretend that life is there. 
But most men to themselves seem aimlessly 
Hurrying to and fro and finding naught. 

Yet, unto one who from the minster tower 
Looks down along the centuries to the ground, 
They seem to move in common ; and the sight 
Awakes within his heart a faith, to which 
That elder faith was childish fantasy. 
What the new life shall be toward which men move 
No tongue can tell, for it no eye hath seen ; 
But whence they move is clear; therefore in part 
The whither we may guess. Away from hate, 
Away from violence, men slowly draw, 
And leave behind the huddling fear of force, 
Which sinks in mass the individual, 
And leave the vapors of world-ignorance, 
Whereon man saw his morning shadow thrown, 
And fell before its vastness, worshiping ; 
And leave with every lie some love of lies. 
Hence deem we kindliness and brotherhood, 
Respect for others born of self-respect, 
And bold research in room of cringing awe, 
16 






THE GOTHIC MINSTER 

Shall have their home in that new world men seek ; 
And though on earth they seek it, is it less 
Than that celestial city which John saw 
Descending out of heaven unto men, 
Wherein was no defilement, no more curse, 
Abomination, lie in love or deed, 
Sorrow nor crying more, nor any night, 
But blessedness and healing of the nations ? 
No temple stood therein ; for in that world 
Symbol in sight is lost. There the eternal 
Is manifest in full-flowered human life, 
Which finds itself in the eternal found. 
More we cannot discern, and if we saw 
We could but misinterpret ; but no doubt 
That newer life will bring its new ideals, 
New character, new conduct, new religion ; 
Which if revealed to us were meaningless 
Or profanation. Let us be content 
With what the far height of the tower unfolds 
Of man's divine progression. 

If, in times 
When all things change, our hearts distrust and 

doubt, 
Turn we to where the Gothic minster lifts 
Its cross above the ages, and there learn 
How through the old life's death the new is born : 
A thousand years one order ruled the world, 

17 



MORROW-SONGS 

One form for every temple, wrought upon 
The hard lines of the Roman's hall of state. 
It added first the symbol of the cross, 
Then arched the mighty dome of heaven's peace ; 
The walls reached out their level length, and stood 
In strength a bulwark against all the world ; 
While, like a lower firmament, the roof, 
Expansive, low, benignly sheltering, 
Shut out the world above from that beneath ; 
On every window pressed the rounded arch, 
And all was strong and stable and secure. 
At last, with change of times, the order changed : 
The windows robbed the wall's supremacy, 
Grown wider, yet aspiring far aloft 
In slender shafts that broke the restful lines 
Of level, broken further by supports 
To prop the weakened sides. The roof, upheaved 
As by a strong convulsion, cleft the air 
A wedge, no more a shelter. Losing power 
To lift great domes in air, men reared instead 
Dizzy and toppling spires. Even the round 
Of the strong arch was broken, and the whole, 
To hide its death, was draped with carven flowers. 
So, when at Amiens change had wrought its worst, 
In the completed pile no trace was left 
Of the old meaning ; and, to eyes that saw 
After the ancient order, seemed alone 
Ruin, where we behold the full-blown rose 
18 



THE GOTHIC MINSTER 

Of Gothic beauty, and discern therein 
Meanings that more transcend what they displaced 
Than those the coldness of the Roman hall. 
The elder order built with lifeless weight 
Of stone on stone against the outer light ; 
With all its strength it perished ; but the new 
Abides, which builds with life and light and love. 



THE CONQUEROR* 

A KNIGHT withouten golden spurs, 
Or shield or plumy crest, 
Or axe or brand to take in hand, 
Or lance to lay in rest ; 

A knight for whom no champing steed 
Impatient paws the ground ; 

By squire unfollowed, and by rede 
Of minstrel unrenowned ; 

No lordly mould of brow or limb, 

Nor eye's imperial ken, 
Nor grace of speech distinguish him 

Above his fellow-men ; 



* From this point onward the poems are arranged in order of time. 

19 



MORROW-SONGS 

And they that see him day by day, 
With eyes of outward sight, 

Have never guessed he rideth quest 
Or hath been dubbed a knight. 

But weary eye and weary arm 
And heart world-overworn 

Bespeak how near hope lies to fear, 
While blows yet must be borne. 



Oh ! couldst thou deem that at the last 
Thy God would leave thee so ? 

Hark to the heavenly trumpet blast, 
The death-knell of thy foe ! 

Mankind at length are open-eyed, 

And, all along the sky, 
Behold their beacon-fires that wide 

Proclaim thy victory. 

For only Truth can triumph long, 
And they that work its will 

Then conquer most when foemen boast 
Their bodies slain and still. 



20 



JOHN BROWN 



JOHN BROWN 

THE sea-bound landsman, looking back to shore, 
Now learns what land is highest ; — not the ring 

Of hills that erewhile shut out everything 
Beyond them from him ; these are seen no more ; 
Nor yet the loftier heights that, from the lower, 

He saw far inland, blue, and, worshiping, 

Believed they touched the sky; the gull's white 
wing 
Long since flashed o'er them sunk in the sea-floor. 
These were but uplands hiding the true height, 

Which looms above them as they sink, and rears 
Its greatness ever greater on the sight. 

So thou, across the widening sea of years, 
Aye risest great, as on through gloom and bright 

Our tossing bark of Progress sunward steers. 



THE SOWERS 

THERE went three sowers forth to sow, 
In the shining days when the earth was young ; 
One scarfed with the dawning-light did go, 
For out of the east his steps had sprung ; 
And seeds of knowledge he bore in his hand 
To scatter broadcast over the land. 

21 



MORROW-SONGS 

Another came from the midday heat, 
And seeds of beauty he sowed afar ; 

Resplendent vapors rolled at his feet, 

And his brows were bright as the sun-lands are ; 

To the lands of midnight away he strode, 

And the dawnand the gloaming beneath him glowed. 

The third came out of the star-lit north, 

With the rush of winds and of waters he came ; 

And seeds of duty he scattered forth, 

Far-flung like the northern dayspring's flame ; 

Till dale and hillside, from sea to sea, 

Were bright with the bloom of his husbandry. 

But that was ages and ages gone, 

The sowers are now at rest from their toil ; 
The threefold harvest is drawing on, 

For the dry stalks clash o'er a withered soil. 
Already the reapers throng amain 
With shining sickles among the grain. 

For out of the west the reapers pour 

To reap the harvest the three have sown, 

To bind the sheaves for the threshing-floor, 
Where history's fruit shall at last be shown ; 

And beauty, knowledge, and duty then 

Shall yield their bread for the life of men. 



22 



E 



PROGRESS 



PROGRESS 

NLARGED horizons, ampler life, are gains 
Less than their proof mankind still onward 
strains. 

REFORM 

HALT ! hear ye not the cry, 
That voice not loud nor high, 
But a mighty undertone, 
From the four winds of heaven blown ? 
Hark ! ye can hear it now, 
The sound men heard of yore, 
Making the tyrant bow, 
And crumbling sceptre and throne. 
Hark to the gathering roar, 
And flee from the coming storm. 
Reform, reform, reform ! 

What ! an ye will not hear, 
Look the horizon round, 
See how the wroth clouds rear 
Their blackness from the ground. 
The blue sky shrivels in dread, 
It is furled as a sail is furled ; 
There are fiery bolts to be sped, 

2 3 



MORROW-SONGS 

For the vengeance waxeth warm, 
For justice wakes on the world, 
And woe to the guilty head. 
Reform, reform, reform ! 

Nay, it is now too late ! 
Ye heed, but we cannot wait ; 
The tempest has drawn too nigh ; 
Its threaded lightnings ply, 
And a fiery shroud they weave. 
Fools, ye would not believe, 
Ye doubted, and ye must die. 
Ye vanish, and where ye stood 
The hosts of the upright swarm, 
Their battle-cry made good : 
Reform, reform, reform ! 



THE THINKER 

A PURBLIND mole bored underneath a stone, 
A castle's corner-stone. Then came a storm 
And swept the stronghold to the ground, and men 
Wondered a wind should have such power to smite. 



24 



HEAVEN 



HEAVEN 

OUT of the world of illusion into the world of 
truth, 

From the world of change and dying to the world 
of fadeless youth ; 

Where the eye of man unclouded shall look on 
things that are, 

And the heart of man unwithered be free from sor- 
row and care, 

And the life of man, unfettered by bonds of time 
and space, 

Shall bloom as a god's, unsleeping, yea, lit by 
God's own face. 

O Father, 't is that fair kingdom Thy hands have 
wrought for men ; 

From Thee was their beginning, to Thee they re- 
turn again. 

But forget not, O heart anhungered, that now, 
and here on the earth, 

Mayst thou dwell in that heavenly city, mayst 
thou see with the soul's new birth ; 

For whoso liveth and striveth in service of truth 
and of love, 

To him yieldeth earth already the blessings prom- 
ised above. 

25 



MORROW-SONGS 



LIFE 



LIFE is a passage o'er a stream 
That bridge nor ferry owns j 
Which we must cross, in gloom or gleam, 
On slippery stepping-stones. 



RECOGNITION 

AT twenty, " Dreamer," pitying neighbors said ; 
At thirty, " Fool," the harsher title came ; 
At forty, " Crank," men sneered with scorn and 
blame ; 
But still the genius toiled with unbowed head, 
Wide sowing seed that none saw harvested, 
Till, by and by, at fifty, some cried " Shame ! 
Respect at least is due a noble aim." 
So called him " Mister " guardedly instead. 
At sixty, one must harvest, wheat or chaff* ; 

And now 't was " the Distinguished " that he 
heard. 
At seventy, fields are reaped, the winners laugh ; 
And he had won ; " the Great " was now men's 
word. 
At eighty, they inscribed 4 His fame folds in 
This orb o' the earth.' Yea, who but dreamers win ? 
26 



INDIGNATION 



INDIGNATION 



SHOCK old proprieties, cross local forms, — 
How Indignation in a moment storms ! 
Lie, cheat, bribe, steal, thrust orphans out of doors,- 
And Indignation in its arm-chair snores. 



H 



TEMPTATION 

ER his divine scorn back to virtue won ; 
He by his second temptress was undone. 

HOME* 



HAIL, Mother of us all ! from sea and shore 
Thy children gather round thy knees once 
more; 
The faithful ones that never left thy side, 
And they whose feet have wandered far and wide. 
How dear these love thee, in thy sheltering nest, 
Thy happier children, all their lives attest ; 
But they no less that under alien skies 
In tearful memory mark thy homes arise. 

* Read at the centennial celebration of the town of Freeport, Maine, 
July fourth, 1889. 

27 



MORROW-SONGS 

The fevered sailor on the Spanish Main 

Sees in thy springs his boyhood's face again. 

The homeless toiler 'mid the city's roar 

In midnight watches visits thee once more, 

Retraces every step his childhood trod, 

And in his garret plucks thy goldenrod, 

Or breathes the fragrance of the mayflower meek 

One moment that blots out the city's reek ; 

And even those whose sun sets in the sea 

Prairie and mountain cannot part from thee. 

Serener, softer skies may arch above, 

Thy children yield them a divided love. 

Let now the homage all have paid so long 

In grateful silence, voice itself in song, 

While flock thy nurselings from the ends of earth 

To greet thee on thy second century's birth. 

O Mother Town, thy children love thee well, — 
For what they love thee let our praises tell. 
Thy skies we love, whether they laugh with blue, 
Or frown with clouds the tempest hurtles through ; 
For sheltering still their vastness o'er thee bends, 
A shield whose dome from hill to sea extends. 
Thy hills we love, whose granite ridges show 
Westward the summits of late-lingering snow; 
Themselves to eastward many a watery mile 
The sailor's promise of his children's smile. 
How oft, far inland, gray-beard sons of thine, 
28 



HOME 

Catching the scent of rope or tarry twine, 
Have felt the odor in a flash restore 
Thy river-port, the shipyards on the shore ! 
Again the mallets ply their clattering din, 
The tackles chirp, the screeching planes join in, 
While from the sooty cauldron spreads afar 
The wholesome fragrance of the boiling tar. 
They see the boys with mimic boats at play, 
The white sails flashing in the outer bay, 
With wooded islands peeping still beyond, 
Enchanted isles, the gates of "faery lond." 
Yea, dear is Haraseket's blue expanse ; 
Dear also every brooklet's foamy dance, 
Dusking and dimpling down the wooded hills, 
Where streaming moss its frolic tinkle stills. 
We love thy spruces, hemlocks, and thy firs, 
Cross-bearing, but unwearied worshipers ; 
Thy maples, Autumn's chariot of fire, 
Thy royal elms that robed in gold expire; , 
And even the wild roses by the way 
Our memories cherish many a thorny day. 

The ships that make thy name no longer strange 
Wherever commerce and its ventures range, 
These love we ; but our warmer love arouse 
The manly hearts that urge their frothing prows ; 
Nor these alone, but all the sons of toil 
That reap God's harvests in the wave or soil. 

29 



MORROW-SONGS 

Such are earth's noblemen. In after-time, 
When Right shall reckon idleness a crime, 
Who earns not shall not eat, nor any knave 
Shall make by law his fellow-man his slave; 
For God's great granary of earth shall be 
No longer fenced, but, as the winds are, free. 
What sturdy sons thy lap hath given to fame 
Where learning builds, let Rochester proclaim. 
What inspiration from thy fields hath sprung 
To lend art hues and piety a tongue, — 
Hark to the champion of the Rising Faith, 
Hear what CEnone's pictured beauty saith ! 

Our pulses leap, we glow with filial pride, 
Yet is unspoken more than all beside. 
O brave young souls who at your country's call 
Gave life itself, and deemed the offering small, 
If you we name not this memorial day 
May tyrants filch our liberties away. 
Ah no ! your fame is blazoned on the sky ; 
Your lives ye lost to find eternally. 
And oh ! the sainted, nameless, unforgot 
Sweet souls that live, though now we see them not, 
Whose lives were love to daily duty set, 
Whose prayers, we know, are not all answered yet, 
Whose memories blossom o'er their dust entombed, 
As Aaron's rod, long dead, to fragrance bloomed. 
*T is these that teach us what of thine we prize, — 
30 



HOME 

Not chiefly nature's boon of fields and skies, 
Which other climes in richer store extend, 
Unclouded heavens, and harvests without end, 
Where, free from blight of frost and suns that sear, 
Perpetual spring leads round the laughing year. 
Such blessings here we need not, satisfied 
With one chief good that beggars all beside. 
For here, our lives, though wide they learn to roam, 
Find last, as first, and only here, the Home. 

Resting on earth, but leading up to heaven, 
Like Bethel's ladder, home to man was given. 
First ray of love in selPs benighted life, 
The care for other self in maid and wife ; 
Then pity quickened for the crying child, 
Last, duty ; and the man that roamed the wild, 
Chief brute in cunning, but with death his goal, 
Breathed on by God became a living soul. 
O childhood's home, what memories haunt thy 

name ! 
Of prayers the mother taught when twilight came, 
Her kiss that cheered the urchin's steps to school, 
The father's praise where silence was the rule, 
The mysteries of morning, noon, and night, 
Transfigured all by love's celestial light, 
When all the world was new, and all was good, 
And midmost of the world the household stood. 
Wide now the world has grown, but not so wide 

3 1 



MORROW-SONGS 

As oft the gulf that parts men side by side. 
Though petty seem the joys which then we knew, 
They filled our hearts, as now what triumphs do ? 
Yea, toil itself was pleasure, for the work 
Was done in love, and not as hirelings shirk. 
Here beauty wrought, revealing heaven's design 
That only service can make life divine ; 
And well had wrought if never stranger's gaze 
Had waked the great world's chorus of its praise. 
Here sturdy yeomen, toiling without shame, 
Amassed the riches of an honest name, 
And taught their sons to walk where they had trod, 
Speak truth, and love their country and their God. 

Beloved town, with gladness we discern 
How fortune smiles on thee at every turn, 
And trust that all its present favor brings 
Is but the earnest of still goodlier things ; 
Yet on this day, the fulness of thy years, 
One word the poet brings not free from fears. 
Dear Home Town, let men ever call thee so ; 
Guard well the fount from which thy virtues flow. 
Only thy homes can rear thee manly sons 
And daughters gentle, as thine earlier ones. 
Only thy homes, when dawns this day again, 
Can bring thee love like ours from future men. 
O Land of Homes, amid the storms to fall, 
No fear be thine if thou hast homes for all. 
32 



HOME 

Assured of this, let drowning rains descend, 
And all the winds their wrath against thee bend ; 
The fleeting sands may shift with every shock, 
Not thou, for thou art founded on a rock. 
O Mother Earth, then blooms thy perfect flower 
Only when perfect homes prepare the hour ; 
The perfect flower of Earth, the perfect pair, 
Whose Eden yet awaits them everywhere ! 

As Europe's vast cathedrals, piled in stone, 
Displaced the trees that on their sites had grown, 
Yet in their aisles and arches but renewed 
The living outlines of the primal wood, 
Even so our dreams of human life at best, — 
Mankind restored, its demons dispossessed, 
Where labor waits on health and joy and truth, 
And beauty finds in love eternal youth, — 
Our visions, as they shape themselves in air, 
And clearer grow, familiar faces wear, 
Till, when at last their structure rounds to view, 
'Tis only the old home-life builded new. 



33 



MORROW-SONGS 
THE OUTLOOK 

BY A CONSERVATIVE 

WHEN I was young I sighed for fame, 
And burned the midnight oil ; 
But, now I 'm old, my blood is tame, 
I sit and nurse the sea-coal's flame, 
And read how others toil. 

Here Henry George, for all he 's worth, 

Proclaims his one taxation, 
Crusading to set free the earth, 
And make the loafer, rich from birth, 

Dismount his poor relation. 

There Bellamy, another crank, 

Fiction with fact would mingle ; 
He sees that men in file and rank, 
Like oars arranged in tier and bank, 
Beat twice their number single. 

And so the great industrial mob 

He 'd mold into an army, 
And send it forth to kill and rob 
Famine and Surfeit, which hobnob, 

While discontent grows barmy. 



34 



THE OUTLOOK 

u Amen ! " cries Boston's Dawn of Bliss, 

" But don't be too paternal. 
Fraternal the true watchword is. 
Man in management to miss 

Were tyranny infernal." 

Yonder Macready calls, whose cue 
Seems caught from sport, not killing, 

" See how the players dare and do ; 

What order, yet what ardor too ! 
Because each part is willing." 

He 'd have no man controlled by man, — 

Police or politician ; 
For each will do the best he can, 
Simply through fear of public ban, 

Or hope of recognition. 

So he holds ; and this loose-hung state 

He calls ideal freedom ; 
Where men may join or separate, 
Live gods or beasts, in love or hate, 

As happiness shall lead 'em. 

The poet Morris, oversea, 

Sick of civilization, 
Dreams how England's wealth may be 
Common wealth, and Britons free 

Even from education. 

35 



MORROW-SONGS 

In Germany upstarts Mackay, 

The monarch self proclaiming, 
Across the Storm a steadying cry, 
A torch to lighten earth and sky, 
For equal freedom flaming. 

" Bravo ! " shouts Tucker, looking up 

Above the Transatlantic. 
" That 's Liberty ; that 's Proudhon's cup, 
Whereof when nations learn to sup, 

Their greatness grows gigantic." 

Last, Sullivan exclaims serene : 

" God bless you all, my hearties ! " 
Deuce take them, I say, for I 've seen 
Too much reform to care a bean 
For any of their parties. 

I '11 wager if I had 'em here, 

Well fed, with none that know by, 

Two fingers round a glass of beer, 

Some good havanas lying near, 
They 'd give the crowd the go-by. 

I 'd wager, yet I won't be sure ; 

I own I can't quite place them. 
You 'd really think they love the poor, 
Gold seems powerless to allure, 

Or honors to debase them. 

36 



THE OUTLOOK 



'T was like this in the tiresome days 

We now call ante-bellum ; 
Garrison setting all ablaze, 
And Beecher drowning Parker's brays, 

With Phillips to outyell 'em ; 

Whittier hounding us in rhyme, 

And Mrs. Stowe in fiction, 
And Lowell with them keeping time, 
But trying to disguise his crime 
Beneath the rabble's diction. 

I promise these the self-same fate. 

Who now spouts abolition ? 
Just so you '11 see, if you but wait, 
A time when fools no longer prate 

About the poor's condition. 



w 



APPRECIATION 

E crowned with thorns the living hero's brow; 
But see, we deck his grave with roses now. 



Now! while the very stones from which he bled 
Climb to a monument above his head. 



37 



MORROW-SONGS 



THE PIONEER 



HERE shall be smiling fields, where now the fell 
And ravening wolf howls to his echoed howl ; 
Babies shall prattle where couched panthers 
growl, 
And lovers clip and coo in many a dell 
Which now the savage wakes with midnight yell 
To blood and flame and frenzied orgies foul. 
Already light breaks in on bat and owl 
O'er crashing trees. The settler's axe aims well. 

How desperate are beginnings ! But, at last, 
Where one and then a hundred sadly wrought, 

Throng, on a sudden, millions, and the past 
Becomes heroic, with men's praises fraught. 

Take my praise now, while still thy toils loom vast, 
Lone outpost on the far frontier of thought. 



T 



38 



THE HIGHER HARMONY 

HE soul attuned to music of the spheres 
Strikes often discords unto earthly ears. 



NUMBERS 



NUMBERS 



THE crowd is always on the side of truth ; 
But commonly not long before the truth 
Has in that special form become a lie. 



THE HEAVENLY VISION 

WHEN I am dead, 
May this with truth be said, 
On the rude stone that marks my lowly head, 
That, spite of doubt and indecision, 
In spite of weakness, lameness, blindness, 
Heart's treachery and fate's unkindness, 
Neglect of friends and scorn of foes, 
Stark poverty and all its woes, 
The body's ills that clog the mind 
And the bold spirit bind, 
Still through my earthly course I went, 
"Not disobedient 
Unto the heavenly vision." 



39 



MORROW-SONGS 



MY WASHERWOMAN 

I LIVE at the upper end of the street, 
Where the ground is clean and the air is sweet, 
But all I can see is a patch of sky, 
And lawns and painted walls hard by. 
My washerwoman lives at the end 
Where street and people downward tend ; 
Where the air is full of sickly smells 
And unkempt, squabbling children's yells ; 
But, all day long, from her dingy room, 
She can look where earth's first mountains loom, 
Beyond the broad and living lake, 
Whose deeps the sunset splendors take. 

She looks, but, ah ! she cannot see, 
So blinding is her poverty. 
On pain and hunger, heat and frost, 
The pomp of earth and sky is lost. 

And I that haste the foul street through, 
Envying her its wealth of view, 
I know that if some ill desert 
Should doom me to its noise and dirt, 
The change would bring me loss, not gain, 
Though hourly through my narrow pane 



40 



MY WASHERWOMAN 

I saw those primal mountains rise, 
As proudly peerless to the skies 
As when adown their slopes of old 
The parted waters wallowing rolled. 



THE CHURCH PROGRESSIVE 

THE Church advances ; to each new position 
Man's marching spirit takes she hobbles fast, 
Asserting shrill the hour she finds admission, 
That here she had her home through all the past. 



FAILURE 

YES, I succeeded, and have men's praise, 
And cannot escape it all my days. 
My rival failed ; — but every age 
Shall thrill at the task he dared engage. 



AFTER-LIFE 

OF any other life than this we lead 
Now on the earth, nothing we know indeed ; 
But having this life, with its depth and range, 
We know not whence, why seems another strange ? 

41 



MORROW-SONGS 



PRIESTCRAFT 



AT Bruno's, Lessing's, Rousseau's monument 
Priests glower aloof, their sullen spite to vent 
Against those Sons of Dawn ; for well they wot 
When priestcraft dies its memory shall rot. 



INHERITANCE 

OUR godly fathers from the body stole 
Comfort and beauty, to enrich the soul. 
We, starved and stunted beneath rigor's frown, 
Our souls in riot of the senses drown. 



WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT?* 
i. 

AN EARLY PHYSICIAN 

IF I lay waste and wither up with doubt 
The confidence men have that fleshly ills 
Are the invasion of a demon rout 

Whose fury charm or incantation stills, 

* Suggested by Mr. Howells's poem in Harper'' s Magazine for Feb- - 
ruary, 1891. 

42 



WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT? 



What shall it profit ? for the sick are healed 
Oft with these if not by them, and shall I 

Disturb men's faith, who have no help to yield, 
And leave the sick in their despair to cry ? 

II. 

DOUBT 

This profit is in doubt : until men fear 

They trust a lie, who will strive truth to find ? 
And what is faith but holding truth so dear 

We welcome doubt lest some lie lurk behind ? 
The truth abides ; to halt with doubt perplexed 

Is the first step toward the truth's finding out. 
Though one road fail, the next, or next, or next 

Shall lead to truth ; for men are saved by doubt. 



RICHES 

FREEDOM the wood-nymph in a marish found 
A gilded asp, with glittering jeweled crest 
And eyes of light. So gracefully it coiled, 
With rainbow shimmer playing o'er its gold, 
That Freedom, charmed, took up the lissome toy, 
And let it coil about her sloping wrist, 
And span her neck, and make its pliant nest 

43 



MORROW-SONGS 

Among the soft curves of her youthful bosom. 
For what should white-armed Freedom dream of ill! 
Now lies she low, a purple-spotted corpse, 
Poisoning the air, dead without sign of wound. 
But those that nearer drew tell how they saw 
A mark as of a tooth above the spot 
Where once beat Freedom's heart. 



PRUDENCE 

INTO Truth's abandoned camp 
Prudence mounts with martial tramp, 
Celebrates a victory vast ; 
While the Truth, unseen, has passed 
Onward in its desperate fight 
With the cohorts of the Night. 



EXTREMES 

TRUTH is found in extremes ; 't is only expe- 
dience, prudence, 
Hug the mean, and call it truth, and their palter- 
ing, wisdom. 
Both extremes may be true, but the mean, from its 

very nature, 
Always has been, is, and must forever be untrue. 
44 



THE WAIL OF THE WOUNDED 



THE WAIL OF THE WOUNDED 

AFTER the Gettysburg fight, 
When war had ceased with the night, 
Uncared-for the wounded lay, 
Where they fell in the bloody fray, 
Ten thousand on every side, 
With the myriad more that died. 
But oh ! the chorus of pain 
That rose from hillside and plain, 
A vast, intermingled groan, 
Shriek and howling and moan, 
A volume that crowded the air, 
Agony, anguish, despair, 
In billows that rose and sank, 
Till my soul became a blank, 
By sympathy wrung too deep, 
Escaping madness in sleep. 

But often now I awake 

With every limb a-quake, 

And hair upstarting, wet, 

While on my hearing yet 

In torture shriek again 

That landscape of wounded men. 



45 



MORROW-SONGS 



OPPORTUNITY 

THOR with his thunderous hammer smote the 
rock 
Full nine and ninety times with bounding shock, 
And still a mocking laugh the granite gave ; 
Then Thor the thunderer slept within his grave. 
I came, a stripling, dealt my puny stroke, 
And into dust the stubborn boulder broke. 



TRUTH 

LIKE the dropping rain is truth, 
Which barren soil to foulness turns, 
But life in fruitful soil reneweth, 
Till all the land with beauty burns. 



M'CREADY* 

HOW soon forgotten when we are gone ! 
But here and there our lives bloom on 
Perennial in faithful hearts, 
Whose love recalls our played-out parts, 

* Died June 16, 1890. 

46 



M'CREADY 

And heaves a sigh o'er the broken thread, 

And the roofless tower, and the path that led 

To where the prairie's light and bloom 

Began to break on the jungle's gloom. 

For the spinning ceased, and the trowel fell, 

And the pioneer, who had led so well 

From the forest-depths to the clearing's verge, 

Sank earthward, powerless to emerge. 

But he left behind him a shining trail, 

For others' guidance who shall not fail j 

Who, pressing onward, shall easily win 

To the gardens of beauty and enter in ; 

By thousands enter, till where he trod 

They build an avenue, firm and broad ; 

At the side of which, near the forest's bound, 

He lies in unremembering ground. 

But the throngs that follow where first he went 

Shall be his living monument. 



STUMBLING-BLOCKS 

LIFE'S greatest art, learned through its hardest 
knocks, 
Is to make stepping-stones of stumbling-blocks. 



47 



MORROW-SONGS 
TWO CHARACTERIZATIONS 

H. L. K. — Shelley's Adonais, 33a 

AT last, long after these, a form appeared, 
Some deemed it marsh-lamp, some a meteor 
stray ; 
So low it moved that envy never bleared, 
Nor hate nor malice stifled its thin ray ; 
Yet with love's rosy flame it burned alway, 
Save wrath at wrong flushed it with vengeful red, 
Or honor's hue, caught from the fount of day, 
Or hope with gold of dawn was through it shed ; — 
Now pale with ruth and rue, it sought that stricken 
head. 

K. H. K. — Born January 1, 18Q2 

To dare the right, though heaven denounce it sin, 
To clasp the truth, though all men brand it lie, 

To stand alone, until thy firmness win 

The world to look and what thou seest descry, 
To know thyself, and trust thine own clear eye 

Against a multitude, greatly to love, 
Greatly to be loved, void of jealousy, 

And not even hate to hate ; so live, and prove 

The New Year's gift to earth its need has vision of. 



48 



INDIVIDUALISM 



INDIVIDUALISM 

WHEN will all the world go right ? 
Never ! — Right is infinite. 
When will all the world go well ? 
That is different ; I will tell : 
When each man shall do no less 
Nor more than mind his business, 
And others would risk life and limb 
Who dared to interfere with him ; — 
This whenever you shall see, 
The world will then wag merrily. 



NEW BIRTH 

,/ TMS not reform the world wants, 
A. A smoothing of this or that feature ; 

'T is not reform, but conversion, 
A new, regenerate creature. 



MASKS 

THOUGHT is but the mask whereby 
Life is hid, as word hides thought. 
Ends the dance ; and eye to eye 
Soul and Life at last are brought. 

49 



MORROW-SONGS 



WIT AND MADNESS 

HIS sister, crazing, dreamed herself a queen, 
And, after long years, in that fancy died ; 
Meanwhile, a poet, he, with brow serene, 

Faced Life, its king ; — as mad as she, men cried. 



OPPRESSION 

BROTHERS, ye still must suffering endure ; — 
'T is life's hard way its ills through pain to cure. 
And cured shall yours be when your agony 
Wrings you at last to ope your eyes and see. 



THE BEGINNING OF CIVILIZATION 

MAN outgrows like a garment and throws off 
Law, which is custom armed ; then custom 
next, 
That levelling instinct of the commonplace; 
Last righteousness, which is the cramped cocoon 
Wherein man's soul bred wings for flying free. 
Then love shoots forth, fragrant and white, from lust, 
As from its root in mud the water-lily. 
Man's long, long term of barbarism ends, 
Civilization and true life begin. 
50 



THE JEW 



THE JEW 



THE Jew at his best and worst, Jesus and Shy- 
lock stand ; — 
Galilee bred the one, the other a Christian land. 



THE KING OF DARKNESS 

IF I were the King of Darkness, 
But one thing I should fear. — 
I would toil as a liberal monarch 

To make my people freer ; 
I would take the tax off music, 

Words should be free as air ; 
All men should taste of the choicest, 

And revel in perfumes rare. 
The softest of silk should clothe them, 

Their limbs should repose on down ; 
Naught should lack my approval, 

On no excess would I frown. 
One only thing would I banish, 

And combat with all my might, — 
The poisonous, blasphemous, impious, 

Nihilistic Light. 



*The first line embodies a saying of my friend Robert Nicol. 

51 



MORROW-SONGS 



MUSIC-LIFE 

OVER the poet's eyes 
The clods are shoveled and trod. 
Stifled in silence lies 

The seer who sang of God. 

Wide o'er that voiceless mound 
The anthem's might outswells ; 

And I know — in the world of sound, 
Escaped, the spirit dwells. 



RECREANT 

HAD he died while his words of flame 
Were kindling every soul, 
The world had written his name 
On its brightest hero-scroll. 

But fate condemned him to live, 
And life his words to unsay ; 

Our idol we cannot forgive 

For crumbling to common clay. 

But, trust me, 't is better so ; 

No man should our homage own ; 
Our hearts should their faith bestow 
52 On Truth, and on Truth alone. 



THE RULE OF MAMMON 



THE RULE OF MAMMON 

LOADED with curses of men, and long for- 
gotten of God ; 
This is the upas tree on its venom-blasted sod ; 
Loveless, lightless, foul, in its poison's reeking pall, 
Befriended, known, but of Hate, where God smiles 

over all. 
The seasons cheer and strengthen, the morns their 

life renew, 
But here is naught that lives but the drip of mur- 
der-dew, 
And the ring of leperous greensward, whose oozy 

death o'erpours, 
Widening, widening, widening over earth's happy 

shores ; 
And ever its charnel breath blackens the festered 

sky, 
And ever the ground that was made for men, who 

have risen so high, 
To grow from men into man, and, still ascending, 

who knows ? 
To mount from man into godhead, ever the good 

ground grows 
But a breeding-place for devils, where they that 

still have room 
Choke their brothers backward into the stench and 

gloom ; 

53 



MORROW-SONGS 

And both outdo the beasts in their clamorous claw- 
ing strife; 

And still that circle of death spews over the green 
earth's life. 

But, see, in the black above, the lightnings that 
probe to the clod ! 

An earthquake fumbles beneath. 

No, not forgotten of God ! 



BIRTH 

TO E. G. R. 

FOR thee the mother's sacred joy 
That unto earth a man is born ; 
For him the love without alloy, — 

God's pledge, — unfailing even and morn. 

HATE 

THE hottest hate by vengeance fanned 
Burns not with instant wrath ; 
White molten iron will kiss thy hand, — 
But make it not thy bath ! 



54 



TRUTH, PEACE, LOVE 
TRUTH, PEACE, LOVE * 

TRUTH 

" TXT'E buy the truth," cried BunyarTs pilgrim 

W pair, 

In that vile mart where truth ne'er entered in. 

Here, amid industry's encroaching din, 
Where traffic's tumult storms the trembling air, 
What task is this ye deem than all more fair, 

What profit manifold look ye to win, 

What ore to smelt, what golden threads to spin, 
What shop is this, what handiwork, what ware ? 

We build a mart to knowledge consecrate, 

Above whose door is writ " Let there be light." 

On him that lacks our treasures freely wait, 
For eyes that see make not the sun less bright. 

Free are our goods, yet is our profit great, 
For only truth preserves a nation's might. 

PEACE 

Of knowledge what shall be the earliest fruit ? 
Oh ! can ye doubt that first-fruit shall be peace ? 
To earth's long agony bringing release, 

* Read at the dedication of the Riverside Public Library. 

55 



MORROW-SONGS 

Ending the trail of blood that from the brute 
Hath ever followed man's advancing foot ; 

To war and rumored war a last surcease. 

Desire of all the ages, blest increase 
Of earth's blood-watered prayers, Peace we salute. 

But canst thou dream these inoffensive ranks 
Have power to scatter war's embattled hosts ? 

That at their silent shock the navy's banks 

Of waiting death shall fade from earth's fair 
coasts ? 

Nay, 't is no dream. On Slaughter's bristling flanks 
Truth charges, and they melt like morning ghosts. 

LOVE 

For lo ! a mighty spirit upon earth 

Descends, whereof Peace but forerunner fares ; 

For Peace is naught, saving as it prepares 
The whole round world a pathway for the mirth 
And majesty that hasten to Love's birth ; 

For Love shall reign wide as earth's wooing airs, 

Deep as man's heart, high as heaven's altar stairs, 
Whose rule shall know no end, nor fulness dearth. 

Love the fulfilment is of all the law, 
And all the aeons of the travailing past ; 

56 



TRUTH, PEACE, LOVE 

Is in our hearts fulfilled, who here withdraw 
From ease and gain and strife, which heaven 
o'ercast, 

That we may build this temple without flaw 
To Truth, to Peace, to Love, supreme and last. 



JOHN HENRY MACKAY 

WIDE through the world thou art driven 
By the spirit that lashes thy breast ; 
All life can give it hath given 
Thee freely, save only rest ; 

Rest, and the vision raising 

The vail over uttermost skies, — 

The look that comes to me gazing 
Into my children's eyes. 



ALONENESS 

SIRIUS girt by worlds of light 
With lesser wonderment I mark 
Than a glowworm in the forest's night, 
Where else is only dark. 



57 



MORROW-SONGS 



COMRADE 



" T ET the dead bury their dead " quoth he ; 

-I— 'And on he marched without more ado ; 
Not a turn of the head, not a bend of the knee, 

For the comrade so tender and brave and true. 

I care not ; the Cause may linger now, 

While the stricken heart in its anguish cowers ; 

I must kneel, and twine for that fair Greek brow 
A garland of dusty wayside flowers. 



THE SATIRIST 

NOT mine to draw the cloth-yard shaft 
From straining palm to thrilling ear ; 
Then launch it through the monster's hulk, 
One thrust, from front to rear. 

Mine is the Bushman's tiny bow, 

Whose wounds the foeman hardly feels ; 

He laughs and lifts his hand to smite, 
Then, suddenly, he reels. 



58 



MIDWAY 
MIDWAY * 

" Nel mezzo del camtnln di nostra vita." 

YOUTH for dreams, manhood for toil, age for 
the dreams' fulfilling, 

So runs the course of highest life, when all the gods 
are willing. 

So Dante dreamed and agonized, from sweet New 
Life's romances, 

Through strife and exile, to the sight that crowns 
all human trances. 

His face, that from the artist's brush had graced 
the courts of Heaven, 

Grew seared as if enswathed within his Malebolge's 
levin ; 

And yet his heart passed on unbroke through Hell's 
forlorn abysm, 

Nor failed until it sank beneath the triune splen- 
dor's chrysm. 

So sweet Cervantes, sunrise-souled, with wounds 
and fetters burdened, 

Nursed in his heart the high resolve that fate, re- 
pentant, guerdoned. 

Before his smile the masquerade of folly, robed and 
hollow, 

* Written for the fifteenth anniversary of the class of 1880 in 
Colby University. 

59 



MORROW-SONGS 

Sank like the braying herds that felt the bright 

shafts of Apollo ; 
And, " one foot in the stirrup," still he wrought 

that all men wondered, 
And Death, who bore his soul away, of half his 

booty plundered. 
So Chaucer, touched by love's sweet pain to most 

melodious plaining, 
Was doomed to con life's day-book lines of sordid 

loss and gaining ; 
But when at last for his account the great Task- 
master beckoned, 
He smiled and held the world aloft with all its 

values reckoned. 

Of all the darlings of the muse, foremost among 
her favored, 

Blest with her full, peculiar love, that life-long 
never wavered, 

Stand two supremely eminent : the one whom Flor- 
ence nourished, 

The other round whose youthful steps the drama's 
fulness flourished. 

But twice, O calm Urania, high-throned above our 
passions, 

Twice only hast thou felt the pang that Death for 
mortals fashions : 



60 



MIDWAY 

! 

Once when beneath Ravenna's pines thy Dante's 

eyes were darkened, 
i And once when Milton, blind, alone, Death's icy 

footsteps hearkened. 
| A Samson straining at the posts his tugging could 

not level, 
A captive 'neath the roof where Crime held high 

exultant revel ; 
| Powerless to raze that Shrine of Sin, which mocked 

his might, victorious, 
He turned, and high above it reared another shrine 

so glorious 
That all the world with pilgrim feet now bends its 

worship thither, 
Unmindful of the crumbling Shame, whose weeds 

untrodden wither; 
So, to the dream of Milton's youth, his manhood's 

high ambition, 
The gods accorded to his age to work a full frui- 
tion. 
Men live who Hawthorne's morning saw by gloom 

of toil beclouded, 
Yet witness how he bore his heart with no repining 

shrouded ; 
And when at length the darkness broke, lo ! fame's 

serenest summit. 
The height his youthful vision saw, his manhood's 

feet had clomb it. 

61 



MORROW-SONGS 

O kindly friends within whose eyes the light of 

love arises, 
Which once illumed our youthful blanks with glow 

of future prizes, 
No trophies from the world we bring, save un- 

dimmed high endeavor, 
Yet dare believe your toil, your faith, shall not be 

mocked forever. 
Our dreams are dreamed ; with eyesight purged of 

golden youth's illusion, 
We see the world the maze it is of struggle and 

confusion. 
No place for dreams ! and yet we leave our castles 

high upbuilded, 
Flushed with the rose of hope untried, with dawn's 

expectance gilded. 
We turn, and deep in earth we delve, or swink in 

kiln and quarry, 
Whereto ? but that the world some day may see, 

and not be sorry, 
Those airy outlines taking form in solid, shining 

marble, 
A house of joy, where men may feast, while birds 

around it warble. 
For History this proclaims, its flight world-wide 

through aeons taking, 
That naught abides save only dreams transmuted 

into waking. 
62 



ORIGINALITY 



ORIGINALITY 



THE man who not yet seeth clear, 
Confused by cries u Lo there ! " " Lo 
here ! " 
Can but proclaim another's sight. 
But when he once hath seen aright, 
Pierced to the splendor through the dim, 
His vision so attendeth him, 
Whate'er he views by others shown, 
His revelation bides his own. 



REVEALED 

NOW, on a sudden, I know it, the secret, the 
secret of life. 

Why, the very green of the grass in the fields with 
betrayal is rife ! 

The whirr of the grasshopper by the wayside pro- 
claims it to all ; 

'T is unrolled as a scroll to all eyes in the curve of 
the waterfall. 

But, for me, I can only wonder at mortals, — the 
secret out ; 

For they see, hear, taste, smell, feel not what Heaven 
reveals all about. 

63 



MORROW-SONGS 



KEARSARGE 

THIS morning on my eastward road 
Kearsarge's top a diamond glowed. 
At noon on its ice-planed ridge I lie, 
Facing the neighbor clouds on high ; 
My back is warmed by the sun-bathed stone, — 
A child of earth myself I own, 
And yet within for flight endowed, 
To float, a brother to the cloud. 
An eagle swims the gulf abreast, 
Eyeing askance his unknown guest. 
O Eagle, I wonder if thou art 
Nearer than I to the mountain's heart ; 
Canst better the hidden meaning guess 
Of its vast and cavernous silences ; 
The burden of its midnight moan, 
The plaint of the rain on its breast of stone, 
Or the Cause whereto its trumpet-call 
Summons the world to fight or fall. 

But hither though we twain may come, 
Neither here can build his home. 
Thine is the tree-top half-way down, 
And mine in the lowland, the far-off" town. 
Thy tongue I know not, thou knowst not mine ; 
We dimly interpret by sound and sign ; 

6 4 



KEARSARGE 

Then how shall either the secret reach 
Of the mountain's formless and primal speech ? 
Yet all-prevailing is love that abides ; 
Not wholly its meaning the mountain hides 
From thee in thy patient, circling flight, 
Nor me outstretched on its sailing height. 
For what we lack it behooves us wait ; 
And what we have learned, with hearts elate, 
Yet awed by the mountain's mighty sway, 
To ponder, understand, and obey. 



BABYHOOD 

THE baby learns by bumps and bruises, 
Else could he never learn at all. 
Now, who can tell but this the use is 
Of earthly life to great and small ? 

Our world was haply made to fail in, 
The place to learn how not to do ; 

To blunder, stumble, ache, and wail in, 
Till out of false we learn the true. 



65 



MORROW-SONGS 



MEDIO TUTISSIMUS IBIS 

THEY bade me take the middle course 
And shun a palsied eld's remorse ; 
Betimes to rise and eke to bed, 
Look not on wine or lips when red, 
In food and drink, in speech and dress, 
Avoiding spareness and excess ; 
Ever as Wisdom's final touch 
To take the rule of " Not too much." 

By this rule have I lived my life, 

Free from ambition, joy, or strife ; 

And now, when fourscore years are done, 

I strike the balance, and have won 

From all, head, heart, and hand have brought 

In fourscore years of living — naught. 

Better one pang of love's defeat, 

One mad thought hammered at white heat, 

One dash to gain a hopeless goal, 

Than Life triumphant over Soul. 



66 



THE TRIUMPH OF TOIL 



THE TRIUMPH OF TOIL 

O GOLDEN Dreams that I loved and toiled 
but to feed, 
This is the triumph of toil, that no longer I heed 
You, whom I toiled for by day to possess at night, 
But find night and day in toil my only delight. 

THE PLAYER 

YON man with hollow cheeks and eyes of fire, 
And hair upstarting, as he smites the lyre ; 
The message it so wrings him to convey, 
That music, dar'st thou hear and call it play ? 

SONG-LULL 

WHY are our poets silent ? Is it in 
The utter wanhope of this devil's-din, 
Which stuns men into deafness ? Do not fear ! 
That low-born jangle never meets their ear. 
It is because too near sweeps roaring by 
The flaming robe of giant Destiny. 



67 



MORROW-SONGS 



THE TIME-SERVER 

HE serves the Time with knuckle and nod, 
And Time, who is a generous god, 
Gives him all that heart can desire, 
Except, it may be, prophetic fire. 



GENIUS 

AT last the doom of genius is made plain ; — 
Not heavenly-fed the beacon we behold, 
Which turns the dusk of earthly life to gold, 
But stealing sustenance from heart and brain. 
No marvel if the streaming Pharos drain 

The strength that lifts it, and with manifold 
Disaster crashing fall, its years half told, 
A fume bat-winged with every shape of pain. 

Twin-born its wreck and splendor. — Oh ! rejoice 

That we have learned its secret, and no more 

May cheapen with blind insult or defence 

Its godlike doom, wherein was writ no choice 

And no escape. The dead vain tears deplore ; 

The living claim love's tardy penitence. 



68 



FERTILITY 



FERTILITY 



A MONTH devoid of song, but strown 
With toil and pain and anxious care, — 
The cumbering draff through which alone 
Song's fragrant blossoms leap to air. 



GUIDED 

MUSE, we have rowed on glassy streams, 
Poised 'twixt the skies of truth and dreams ; 
You, at the tiller, lolled to trail 
A water-lily o'er the rail ; 
I, drunken with your beauty's wine, 
Recked only of its breath divine, 
Nor dreamed what high up-clashing seas 
Should follow swift that love-lapped ease. 

On those white surges tost and whirled, 

An atom in a strangling world, 

Without a star, without a ray, 

We drove through wrecks of night and day, 

You guiding still our dizzy flight, 

I at your feet benumbed with fright, 

Till suddenly you seized my hand, 

And lo ! we were in peace at land. 

69 



MORROW-SONGS 



On this Enchanted Isle our stay 
Or long or short is yours to say. 
Here all about us rolls the sea, 
Its terror now a part of me, 
To heighten joys like these I know, 
Reclining on your breast of snow, 
Yet to assure by sea or land 
My welfare at your guiding hand. 



THE WAY STATION 

TWELVE times a day the train whirls by, 
Four times my humble name it heeds ; 
I live not in the traveler's eye 

More than the rail o'er which he speeds. 

From the great city forward borne 

To the great city of his quest, 
Awake or slumbering, night or morn, 

He recks not of my toil or rest. 

Yet, but for me, the giant mart 

Would melt like drifted smoke of trains ; 
Its very stones are all my part, 

And mine its conquering hands and brains. 



70 



CULTURE 



CULTURE 



BEAUTY, — ah! yes, but first let Justice be 
done in the earth, 
Justice, which brings Heaven down from the 
barren stars to the ground, 
Here to be dwelt-in of men — Heaven's only mean- 
ing and worth ; 
And in Heaven or this our Hell, think you, shall 
Beauty be found ? 

Nay, dream not of Heaven below ; the utmost that 
earth can give, 
The highest of human life, the perfectest Golden 
Age, 
Will not be Heaven brought down, where men 
shall as angels live, 
But Purgatory, where still we shall climb from 
stage to stage. 



B 



BEFORE DAWN 

ECAUSE I spurned the manikin men name 
The Ineffable Name, they shrieked and stopped 
their ears. 
But taunts of" Atheist " lend my death no fears ; 

7i 



MORROW-SONGS 

My dread is all lest I, as meet for blame, 
Reared too my idol when I durst proclaim : 

Exalt we Plato's thought, the Christ's warm 

tears, 
And Caesar's throne above heaven's topmost 
spheres, 
The Infinite outsoars them still the same. 

Silence had holier been ; I see it now, 

Lying 'twixt night and what shall follow night. 

Better to stand with bare and open brow 
Confessing never can our human sight 

Attain thy garment's hem ; yea, to avow 
Earth's dark not even the nadir of thy light. 



DUST 

SATANIC Science, to reveal 
A speck of dust the snowflake's core ! 
Well, bravo, dust ! If you could steal 
Angelic plumes, we '11 mope no more. 



72 



TWO POETS 



TWO POETS 



HE had a straight Greek brow, which sculptors 
loved, 
And clear and pure his classic measures rang. 
Men hailed him bard by all the gods approved, 
And snowy maids his star-cold numbers sang. 

Look now on this face. Mark the bulging brow, 
The shapeless mouth, the torn and twisted ear, 

The seams of riot. Nay, who marks them now ? 
He fired men's hearts to win our Golden Year. 



73 



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